AI, Data and the City

Presented by Professor Katharine S. Willis, Visiting Fellow with the Western Academy for Advanced Reseach (WAFAR).

Description: Data and AI now underpin city infrastructure and shape urban living but there are many questions as to how they include and exclude groups and individuals and who has access. There is a real need to explore how AI and data enable people to participate more actively in the design and inhabitation of the city and how this can enable patterns of behaviour change that lead to net zero and low carbon communities.

A data-driven approach to urban life requires new modes of thinking about who has access to information and how this access enables different modes of citizenship or governance.

This talk will present a series of case studies of projects that engage with AI and data in an inclusive approach and will discuss the corresponding implications for AI, data and the city.

Bio: Katharine S. Willis is Professor in Smart Cities and Communities in the School of Art, Design and Architecture at University of Plymouth. Her research expertise includes smart cities, smart villages, digital technologies and the role of space and place. Her research explores how new technologies can create ways for people and communities to engage with place, with a particular focus on social and digital inclusion. She has extensive experience working collaboratively through participatory methods with marginalized groups and in deprived neighborhoods.

She has published widely on the topic; she is co-author with Alex Aurigi of two key Routledge volumes on Smart Cities, and the monograph Netspaces: Space and Place in a Networked World.  Her interests have included investigating how people shape smart and digital technologies to their needs in the UK, India and Brazil.

This event is supported by the Western Academy for Advanced Research.